"The demarcation between eastern and western WA and OR, culturally, demographically, politically, climatically, geologically, anything you can think of, has always been the north-south Cascade range, even though the range does not lie equidistant from the western (Pacific) and eastern borders of the states"

I am a circa 1950's traditional Catholic, and in addition to having been born then, am forever fixated to the faith and liturgy of the Church at that time. That was the Church untarnished by modernism and the influences of Protestantism. Before Vatican II the Mass was little changed for centuries and served God and the faithful well (i.e. "perfectly").

People have been led to believe the Mass must change to keep pace with society but this is an error. Catholics and Catholicism must remain steadfast over time, refusing to comport with the constantly renewed evils of popular culture.

Pope Pius X noted with alarm that progressive "thinking" was taking hold of the contemporary mind, and in that way taking possession of Western civilization, including Catholic laity and priests. The Pope defined progressivism as "Modernism" and in 1907 declared it a heresy in the encyclical called 'Pascendi Dominici Gregis." ("The Heresy of Modernism...seriously," Churchmouse Campanologist, May 26, 2009) (Linda Kimball)

I am worried by the Blessed Virgin's messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in Her liturgy, Her theology and Her soul. I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject Her ornaments and make Her feel remorse for Her historical past.

A day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God. In our churches, Christians will search in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them. Like Mary Magdalene, weeping before the empty tomb, they will ask, Where have they taken Him?>

-Vatican Secretary of State, Eugenio Pacelli (later Pius XII), 1931

I am not sedevacantist, but have real concerns about changes and trends both within and outside of the Church post-1960 (as we were warned).

Am I in schism? Well, not a one of us traditionalists is in schism with the Magisterium or the thousand-year Mass. We are in perfect step and in full communion with the Church as it was for centuries.

The following comparison is not written by me. See copyright after table.

Compare...

Traditional Latin Mass

With ... Modern Mass at your parish

Atmosphere of Reverent Worship: Peaceful, otherworldly atmosphere. Emphasis on individual "lifting his heart & mind to God." Members of congregation direct attention to God, not each other.

Social, Classroom, Entertainment Atmosphere: Constant standing, sitting, amplified noise; atmosphere like a public meeting. Emphasis on "instruction." Socializing in church before & after service, and handshaking during.

Profound Reverence for Real Presence: Sixteen genuflections. The hands of the priest alone touch the consecrated host. Communion given only on tongue.

Fidelity to Catholic Doctrine: Over the course of a year, presents all facets of Catholic doctrine.

Systematic Omission of Catholic Doctrines: New prayers systematically omit references to hell, judgement, punishment for sin, merits of the Saints, the one true Church, the souls of the departed & miracles.

Antiquity: Bulk of Sunday prayers & their arrangement goes back at least to 300s and 400s AD. Canon essentially the same since St. Ambrose (d. 397).

Novelty: Old Sunday prayers omitted or stripped of doctrines, and rearranged in 1960s. Only 17% of old prayers remain. Chunks of ancient Canon are now "optional." The words of consecration, Christ's own words "For you and for many" are changed. Three substitute "Canons" invented & introduced in 1960s, and still more invented later.

Stability: Everything regulated by precise laws to protect purity of worship and doctrine.

Constant Change: Options, options and more options. Individual priests & parish liturgy committees get to pick, drop or invent texts to push what they think people should believe.

Priest is Sacrificer: Priest faces tabernacle, cross and altar (symbolically toward God). Priest performs all the actions & recites all the prayers of the Mass.

Priest is "President", Actor: Priest faces people instead of symbolically "toward God." Priest sits off to side. His functions given away to lay men and women.

Note: Any epithets from me to other FReepers made in anger or otherwise, ARE NOT BINDING and are not meant to be temporally persistent beyond the scope of the thread's active life.

TLM in a small parish near me.

Additional information by FReeper "baa39" explaining the liturgy:

The Catholic liturgy is the Mass. This is the center of our faith, and a source of Grace. Its not only Sunday service but a re-enactment of the Last Supper. Its a sacrificial offering to God, as established by Jesus when he said do this in memory of Me. Mass includes at least four readings from Scripture, a homily explaining them, intercessory prayers, other prayers, but most important, the confection of the Eucharist. At the Consecration, the bread and wine become the body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of the seven sacraments of our faith.

There are specific instructions for how the Mass is offered and how the liturgy is performed, in accordance with revelation, Scripture and Sacred Tradition. These are called rubrics and are defined in Canon Law and the General Instruction on the Roman Missal. Rubrics also exist for Baptism and the other sacraments. Not following the rubrics is disrespectful to the Mass (and to God) and deprives the faithful of the proper and FULL experience of the Mass as instituted by Christ. Hence it is called a liturgical abuse. In some cases its much more harmful, actually invalidating the sacrament, for example using the wrong words for Baptism (such as In the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier instead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.)

...sentence not relevant removed... Liturgical abuses have become widespread, usually as a result of political or sociological ideologies being given precedence by misguided priests.

The Pope has decried these innovations and many Catholics have left their parishes or even the Church because the Sacred Rite has been diluted or bastardized by priests and bishops with their own agendas.

...section not relevant removed... Its mostly lefty, middle-aged hippie priests and bishops, many sympathetic to homos, or homos themselves, who also seem (generally speaking here!) to be the most extreme with liturgical abuses. They seem to have their own hidden agenda and want to remake the Church into their own socio-political instrument. But according to Catholic doctrine, the Church is not a human institution, but divine, and we cannot alter it on a whim, the rubrics each have a deep, ancient meaning, and to abuse them changes the nature of the prayer and liturgy given to us by Christ.

7 posted on Sat 19 Apr 2008 11:21:06 PM PDT by baa39

Some concrete examples, ranging from mild to severe liturgical abuses:

wrong color vestments or lack of vestments/stole holding hands during the Our Father (arguably not an abuse because not done by the priest, but can be if he encourages it or does not explain why its wrong) using a chalice not lined with gold, such as glass or ceramic (precious metal is required because it will hold the Body of Christ) allowing the homily to be given by a layperson (must be priest or deacon) Using grape juice instead of wine dancing, mime, skits, or any performance any time during Mass. Music is not performed, but is provided as either sung prayer or to lead the congregation priest altering any words of the prayers or Roman Canon priest not genuflecting to the Sacrament after the Consecration priest altering the words of Consecration

Christ is true God and true man, right? From God the Father He received His God nature, from Mary His mother, he received her human nature. But as Christ Himself said, Before Abraham was, I am.

So, how can you think that Mary was a flawed, sinful vessel for God to be born from? She had to be pure: sinless. God saved Mary from all sin, to be His mother: a pure, sinless vessel for Him to join God and man together in the Savior. Are you with me?

Because, without her sinlessness (her Grace from God Who saved her from all sin) then God Himself was partaking of the nature of a flawed creatureif Jesus had a partly flawed nature from His human mother, then He could not have been our Savior, because He would have been flawed as well, through her.

So, Mary was sinless; born sinless. Stayed sinless, unless you think that after Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, He cast her aside and left her to commit whatever sins were laying about to be committed.

And could a womb that held God/Man ever hold anyone else? How would that work? Did God say, You did well, now go have intercourse with a man and have as many children as may be, Im finished with your womb now. He would do that, to the woman who replied to the angel, Be it done unto me according to thy word?

And then, when it became her time to die, would He let her flesh decay? Would He even let her die? He came, and took her to heaven, first among Christians, mother of the Savior, Queen of all the saints, merciful mother of God.

It seems to me that denigrating Mary is insulting to God; but not everyone thinks the way I do. For those who disagree, may God bless you with the spiritual discernment you say you prize so highly. (I have my doubts, buthey! Im human.)

362 posted on 03/19/2008 1:40:11 PM PDT by Judith Anne

Another wonderful comment, this time by FReeper "VRWCer" explaining the nature of the Blessed Virgin Mary

We worship God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - The Trinity). We *honor* Mary, our mother (Jesus gave her to us as our mother from the cross), as being a human being who was born pure (as in Luke, where the angel Gabriel addresses Mary as full of grace), because God intended, before she was born, for her to carry His Son in her womb and be His mother. Therefore, she needed to be a pure and perfect vessel (foreshadowed by the Ark of the Covenant in the OT). We also honor her because, due to the gift of free will, she was always free to say no to the role she was created for - but she didnt. She said, Let it be done according to your word, and became the mother of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Additionally, she was the catalyst in Jesus beginning His ministry (at the wedding at Cana). So as you can see, she really played a most pivotal role in salvation history, and in facilitating the Lords plan to redeem the human race. Thus, she is quite deserving of our honor, love, and gratitude.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace, The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of death.

Amen.

Thanks for the Ave Maria suggestion from FReeper Morgana!

Response by FReeper Romulus to the following statement:

"Latin is a dead language".

Which is why it's so well-suited for liturgy. The words don't change. Meanings don't change. Ministers won't muck it about.

The Church is our mother too, and Latin is her language.

In most cultures and at most times in history, the norm has been that people have had at least a nodding acquaintance with more than one language. Till quite recently, the English-speaking world has been a curious exception. Perhaps because of the enormous land mass of North America and the island nature of Britain, New Zealand, and Australia, we havent had the experience of regular dealings with other languages and dialects. Maybe this has made us a bit selfish and forgetful of whats normal to the rest of the world. Whatever the reason, much of the rest of the world has at least a basic competence in more than one language. Till forty or so years ago, so did American Catholics. No, we werent all classics scholars, but we could say our prayers. At Mass we could sing some hymns and give the responses assigned to us. What we once had can be recovered more quickly than most of us realize.

One concrete way we make our home in the midst of divine mystery is through the use of sacred language  speech set aside for the worship of God. Liturgical language, chiefly Latin in the Catholic Church, is well-suited to sacred liturgy for a great many reasons:

 Latin doesnt change. Unlike vernacular tongues, Latin doesnt evolve over time, so it imparts stability to liturgy that guarantees the durability and integrity of the Faith as its handed from one generation to the next.

 Latin is traditional. In other words, Latins not just a comfortable habit Catholics are used to; its the tongue of our ecclesial heritage. Latin puts us in touch with the writing and worship of the Church from her earliest centuries; Latin allows us to enter the times and minds of our ecclesial ancestors and know them unfiltered and unmediated.

 Latin is supra-national. It doesnt belong to any country or ethnic group; its something that is available to all without giving preference to any. Latin makes the stranger at home wherever he finds himself. Its a mark of catholicity, of universality, in the Church whose mission territory is the whole world.

 Latin is a sign of communion. Latin is one more way for Catholics to live out their unity, not only across international boundaries, but across the centuries. The use of living prayers that were ancient in the mouths of saints a thousand years ago strengthens our bonds with them and strengthens our understanding of the timelessness of God. Its a witness to the world about the true meaning of the communion of saints .

 Latin is holy. This isnt to say the language is sacred by its very nature, but its holy in the sense that it has no daily use except the worship of God. Its set aside for worship, honoring a human impulse that transcends time and cultures, that establishes numerous liturgical languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, Old Church Slavonic, and Sanskrit.

 Latin ensures authenticity. Vernacular liturgies tempt some priests to experiment with novelties, to inject their own creativity and personality. Latin makes that all but impossible, ensuring that the people receive the authentic liturgy thats their right and protecting the priest from the temptation to grandstand.

Seen this way, the use of Latin in the Mass is about far more than just being old-fashioned or perversely obscure or exclusive and elitist. The Second Vatican Council ordered that "the use of Latin is to be preserved in the Latin rites" and that "steps are to be taken to ensure that the faithful are able to say and sing together, also in Latin, those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass that pertain to them". The Council ordered this not for shallow reasons of atmospherics or antiquarianism but because it understood that the universal Church needs a universal language. Most Catholics are still waiting for their schools, priests, and bishops to comply with this Council directive, a delay that has gravely disrupted their ability to live fully Catholic lives.

If Catholics had retained the regular use of the language the Council promised them, and if the two generations born since the Council had enjoyed the education and regular intended for them, Latin would not be seen today as something alien and exotic and slightly scary. The Holy Fathers motu proprio derestricting the older form of the Mass is not a nostalgic old mans dreamy bid to put the clock back to the good old days, its a program for renewal and the future. The Traditional Latin Mass is the real Youth Mass.